


Eternity in a Bookshop

by catstrophysics



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop, Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Fluffy, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Living in the Bookshop, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, Soft af, basically... I have FEELINGS.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 15:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catstrophysics/pseuds/catstrophysics
Summary: When the world is no longer in danger of ending, moving into the bookshop together seemed like the best option  for both Crowley and Aziraphale.





	Eternity in a Bookshop

Moving into the newly-recreated bookshop was the easiest course of action for both Crowley and Aziraphale. It was cozy there, big enough for both of them to live in with a little bit of adjusting, and the bookshelves looked absolutely lovely with the smaller of Crowley’s houseplants perched upon them. It looked almost natural, as if the plants had been there through all the centuries of the life of A.Z. Fell and Co., and not just for the last. 

That being said, ease does not necessarily imply simplicity. For Crowley, moving from his marble-and-stone loft to the cluttered, stuffy, chilly bookshop was nearly stifling. He sorely missed keeping the air conditioning as warm as it would go, using the heat as energy better and more effective than any caffeine or stimulant known to humankind. Aziraphale was immune to the cold, his sweaters and socks insulating him and the cold being better to drive out customers anyways, and Crowley suffered for it. He had taken to sitting in the lone window in the back office, drinking down as much tea as his body could handle to warm himself from the inside out. 

The clutter got to him, too. His wide-open apartment, with tasteful art here and there, had been home for so many years, and now he was living among the old books that smelled faintly of vanilla. He was too fast for the tiny shop, and the heaps of books that hid around every shelf were menaces. He really needed to check with Aziraphale about reorganizing, or maybe just buying more shelves. 

But, for all its downsides, moving in was—pardon the phrase— _heavenly_. He didn’t need to wait to be invited through the door anymore, could just walk in. Well, unlock the door with the key he’d gotten Aziraphale to copy for him, and then push his way past the pile of newspapers and advertisements and whatnot that people shoved through the mailslot on a daily basis. It had been six thousand years, and still, Aziraphale’s “welcome home” smile never failed to make Crowley grin back just as hard. 

The angel was shockingly caring, even more than Crowley had anticipated. And not just in the oversized knit blankets that piled themselves upon Crowley’s favorite chair, as soon as he caught wind of Crowley being cold. Not just in the extra mug that appeared in the kitchenette, alongside Crowley’s favorite kind of tea. (He had never been much of a coffee drinker, and Aziraphale had only made that mistake once, when he’d taken Crowley to Yemen back in the 1500s when it was first invented.) Not even in how suddenly, the creaky old record player had Queen vinyls playing nearly constantly, and how Aziraphale was steadily learning the words. 

He cared. He asked every evening, “How was your day?” even though all Crowley had done was struggle in vain against the tide of books that had taken to tumbling off the shelves daily. Crowley was still skittish around fire, would still glare at candles and bonfires and smokers on the streets as if they were moments form stealing his most precious thing. Sometimes, when he smelled smoke, he would go seek Aziraphale out and cling to his hand and shoulder and waist for an hour or two, as the angel gently worked around the demon plastered to his side. He understood, and within a week every source of fire in the shop was gone. Except the teakettle, of course, because how could either of them live without it? 

For Crowley, it was safe in the bookshop. It was nice, living with his best friend post-Armageddon, and never really worrying about much. He’d taken to reading, mainly fantasy books. The night he “moved in”, a loose use of the word because they’d just miracled all of his things into the apartment above the shop and hadn’t bothered with any of that moving van business, Crowley had been pleasantly surprised to find that he had his own half of the bed, with a fluffy black blanket folded up at the foot and a pile of novels on his very own nightstand. Aziraphale had just smiled, saying something about how he’d been setting these aside for the day he ever stopped by for something to actually read. They’d gotten in bed that night with the smooth shamelessness that comes with seeing each other in various states for millennia, and they’d laid there for a few hours, just reading together. 

Despite Aziraphale’s love of food, he really was an atrocious cook, something they both discovered their first morning living there, when Aziraphale tried to make some celebratory “all moved in” pancakes and promptly melted straight through a pan. Crowley, however, was a wizard with a skillet, and they ate properly as the sun rose over the London fog. 

It had taken them so long to finally move in together, through generations and millennia and cultural movements and the ways the world changed that no one had anticipated, and despite all the practical reasons that they _should_ have made the change centuries ago, that when the dust settled, when the Antichrist was just Adam, when the prophecies were burned and gone, when Dog was just a dog, and when the Kraken was back at the bottom of the ocean, nothing was really as new as they expected it to be. It takes time to learn the quirks of a new roommate, but when you’ve known them longer than the wheel had been in existence the learning isn’t so much of discovering new things as recalling old ones fondly. 

When it’s written in the stars, _ineffable_ as Aziraphale was always so fond of calling it, very little can stand in the way. Neither Hell, nor Heaven, nor Humanity themselves, could have any effect on the ending these two wrote for themselves. Spending eternity in a bookshop, to them, was an eternity well-spent as long as they were together. Alpha Centauri could wait until _next_ eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I've got a lot of Ineffable Husbands feelings even from back when I first read the book several years ago, and seeing the fandom come together around the show has been beautiful. Kudos and comments are incredibly appreciated! Leave the name of the last song you sang along to in the comments. Have a great day!
> 
> Random fact: Did you know people who walk quickly live an average of 15-20 years longer than people who walk more slowly?


End file.
